Open-Source Tools and Resources for Audio-Visual Archives

This course was planned to be held at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola in Donostia (San Sebastián), Spain, on 18–21 May 2020. Given CoViD-19, it will finally be a series of webinars spanning over two weeks. We will use the GoToMeeting platform and the full link will be provided by the school.

Abstract

The class begins with an introduction on file formats. Building on this the students will practically explore free and open-source software, such as FFmpeg (for in-depth file transformation), QCTools (for quality control), AEO-Light (sound extraction from optical tracks) and DCP-o-matic (DCP encoding), as well as various media players.

Resources on infrastructure and workflows for film and video digitisation will be presented and discussed, taking account especially of solutions which can be implemented in difficult environments at little expense.

An overview on data preservation and migration, as well as disaster planning and recovery, will round off this class.

Lectures

Tuesday 19^th May, two sessions at 10:00–11:30 and 12:00–13:00

• On Audio-Visual File Formats, PDF, 3.0 MB (MD5 = 3f134e0a384e0d9008d158bee1924194)
• An Introduction to FFmpeg, PDF, 498 KB (MD5 = e0bc2c911cb4b284276afa7505a17209)

Thursday 21^st May, two sessions at 10:00–11:30 and 12:00–13:00

• Used FFmpeg commands
• Before the Restoration, PDF, 8.1 MB (MD5 = f305a5c16c9f8087f588986c0c8231a6)
• Case Study: the Bayer Colour Imaging Array, PDF, 120 KB (MD5 = e9ab7f598026b4594aae6e325e1f51b2)

Tuesday 26^th May, two sessions at 10:00–11:30 and 12:00–13:00

• Validation, PDF, 69 KB (MD5 = 792e1a4d08cc7a438aff9301177b0c77)

Thursday 28^st May, two sessions at 10:00–11:30 and 12:00–13:00

• Open-Source Tools and Resources, PDF, 66 KB (MD5 = bc69743a97a657334b6815cd972cad12)
• Data Migration, PDF, 1.9 MB (MD5 = 4ac11df6d3fb62421d1c4964bba57218)
• Create DCPs: DCP-o-matic

Free and Open-Source Software

Media Players

• VLC media player (GUI)
• mpv (CLI and GUI)
• ffplay (CLI)

Metadata Extraction

• MediaInfo (GUI and CLI)
• ffprobe (CLI)

File Transformations

• ffmpeg (CLI)
• FFmpeg Cookbook for Archivists
• ffmprovisr (can be installed locally on your computers)
• FFCommand Engine (GUI for macOS and Windows)
• FFmpeg exercice files (ZIP, 1.06 GB, MD5 = c2fdc0fc9290ebaa4757d69fadf3f38c)

Quality Control

• QCTools (GUI) und qcli (CLI)
• QCTools Documentation
• AV Artifact Atlas
• QCTools Cheat Sheet
• Seattle Municipal Archives User Guide, 2015 (download the PDF)
• QCTools exercice files (ZIP, 1.38 GB, MD5 = d933ed0d2079fa5cfec0009bb2e6c032)

Policy Implementer, Checker, Reporter and Fixer

• MediaConch (GUI and CLI)

The Missing Piece of Software

• RAWcooked (CLI)

Optical Sound Extraction

• AEO-Light (GUI)
• AEO-Light “Manual” (PDF, 5.7 MB)

DCP Encoder (and Player)

• DCP-o-matic (GUI and CLI)
• Carl Hetherington: DCP-o-matic users’ manual (available also as PDF, 2.1 MB)

Other Resources

• Ashley Blewer: Command Line Interface

Bibliography

• Agathe Jarczyk, Reto Kromer, Yves Niederhäuser and David Pfluger: Digital Archiving of Film and Video: Principles and Guidance, Version 1.2, Memoriav, Bern 2019
• Reto Kromer: “On the Bright Side of Data Migrations”, in IASA Journal, n. 49 (December 2018)
• Reto Kromer: “Matroska and FFV1: One File Format for Film and Video Archiving?”, in Journal of Film Preservation, n. 96 (April 2017)
• Shira Peltzman: Unlocking the DCP: Evaluating the Risks, Preservation, and Long-Term Management of Digital Cinema Packages in Audiovisual Archives, MIAP Thesis, New York University, 2013 (PDF, 1.4 MB)

2023-05-26